


everything the darkness stole

by theriveroflight



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bittersweet Ending, Gen, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-25 16:47:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20029072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theriveroflight/pseuds/theriveroflight
Summary: “So,” Hawk Moth says, “now that he’s out of the way, I have a proposition for you. You’re smart, you’re the brains out of the two of you-”“That’s incorrect, but go on - I want to hear what you have to say to me.” She’s standing up straight, and though she isn’t taller than him, she hopes she can exude enough confidence to match him in spirit.“I’m doing this for my wife.” She almost falters with the confident facade. “The two miraculouses give you a wish, and I would use that wish to bring back my wife.”“You spent all that time terrorizing Paris...just to revive your dead wife.”“She isn’t dead. Coma. The hospital wouldn’t keep her, so I have a setup here that keeps her alive.”“How?”“Let’s just say that the miraculous can cause more pain than it’s worth, Ladybug.”“I’ll help you.” She finds the words unexpected, but not incorrect. “I won’t give you my miraculous right now, but I’ll help you get Chat’s through diplomacy. On a few conditions, though.”





	everything the darkness stole

**Author's Note:**

> Title stolen from Ariana Grande’s “the light is coming,” which is actually one of her more mediocre songs.  
I titled this in Google Docs evil!LB, which while she isn’t exactly evil, she does act as a double agent and works with Hawk Moth in an effort to help him either get over his wife or help him bring her back.  
I haven't watched the entire series, so please no spoilers? (I'm on s2)  
Read over by the lovely [ Embersofthefrosts. ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Embersofthefrosts)

They did it.

They had found Hawk Moth.

And now it was time for the final showdown. The supervillain couldn’t defeat them without an akumatized person. By taking the fight to him, they minimized the risk of that.

Chat seemed shaken by the identity of Hawk Moth - she didn’t know why, but clearly Chat Noir must have known him - and that begged the question from where? How would someone know Gabriel Agreste outside of the man broadcasted from Skype or FaceTime or whatever by his assistant?

“Cataclysm!” Chat calls, and destroys the cane Hawk Moth has been fighting with. Hawk Moth smirks, as if it was part of his plan, and starts typing away at his computer.

“I’ll cover you,” she whispers to him. “Go take care of your kwami, it’ll probably need it. I don’t want him to see you detransform, and you certainly can’t recharge in this room.”

Chat starts sprinting to the window. Marinette follows, using her weapon to keep the butterfly swarm off of him as he jumps out the window, baton in hand.

She’s not worried. Chat knows how to catch himself.

“So,” Hawk Moth says, “now that he’s out of the way, I have a proposition for you. You’re smart, you’re the brains out of the two of you-”

“That’s incorrect, but go on - I want to hear what you have to say to me.” She’s standing up straight, and though she isn’t taller than him, she hopes she can exude enough confidence to match him in spirit.

“I’m doing this for my wife.” She almost falters with the confident facade. “The two miraculouses give you a wish, and I would use that wish to bring back my wife.”

“You spent all that time terrorizing Paris...just to revive your dead wife.”

“She isn’t dead. Coma. The hospital wouldn’t keep her, so I have a setup here that keeps her alive.”

“How?”

“Let’s just say that the miraculous can cause more pain than it’s worth, Ladybug.”

“I’ll help you.” She finds the words unexpected, but not incorrect. “I won’t give you my miraculous right now, but I’ll help you get Chat’s through diplomacy. On a few conditions, though: I don’t have to give up mine until after I get Chat’s, you give them back afterwards - they aren’t ours to keep, and they’re not yours to decide the fate of. You show me your wife, because I need to know that you’re not lying just for pity points and actually have an entirely different purpose. And finally, after it’s all over, you give up the butterfly and stop attacking Paris.”

“I’ll one up you on that last one - I’ll turn myself in to the police.”

That’s even more unexpected. Hawk Moth isn’t responding like she thinks, and all her perceptions of him have completely shifted.

“Deal.” They shake on it.

There are no other conditions, just Hawk Moth taking her down to see the wife.

She’s pale and laying on a bed and there’s no doubt that Hawk Moth is Gabriel Agreste, because that is his wife.

_ Wait, what about Adrien? _ she thinks. _ His father is Hawk Moth, and if he turns himself in who knows what’ll happen to Adrien? _

“Alright,” she hears herself saying. “How should I contact you?”

“Just...leave something in the mailbox, and be sure to sign it.”

“Alright.”

“And I’m sure it goes unsaid that you won’t tell anyone until it’s over?”

“Not about your identity.” Marinette steels herself to the reality that she is working with Hawk Moth.

But he won’t be the one to manipulate her - she knows all of his secrets, and _ she _ will be the one in charge. She’s taking the control away from Hawk Moth.

He won’t get to hurt the citizens of Paris anymore.

* * *

“My lady,” Chat asks her the next night. “How’d it go?”

“Hawk Moth won’t be akumatizing people anymore. I made a deal with him.”

“What?!” Chat says to her, and the surprise nearly shatters her.

“He told me why he was doing everything in the first place. I have pictures,” she says, flipping open her yoyo to reveal an image of Emilie in the basement, laying there in her coma. “He’s trying to revive his wife. And once he manages to bring her back, he’ll give up the butterfly miraculous and turn himself in to the police. Isn’t this what we wanted? Justice?”

She hopes she can play her cards right.

Chat looks strangely emotional at the picture. She brings him in for a hug. “Hey, it’s okay, Chat. It was surprising to me, too. It’s okay.”

“No but if he turns himself in--” Chat catches himself before he continues it, leaving her to wonder why he’s so against it.

“We have to stop being ourselves, and I can’t go back to the life I had before. I won’t go back.” Chat sounds close to breaking.

“Kitty,” she breathes. “I don’t want to go back to before, either.”

“You don’t understand, milady. I feel lonely most of the time, and the only time where I don’t is here, with you, or at school. It gets to you.”

“I can’t say I understand, Chat, but I’ll still be here for you,” she responds, and they pull out of the hug.

“So, how are we going to do this?” he asks.

“Remember that singer’s music video with the dancing people in Ladybug and Chat masks?”

“Yeah,” he says, but his tone portrays that he feels dubious about it.

“See if you can find that and come dressed in all black. It’ll be harder to tell that way. I’ll come with a Ladybug one and in red. We’ll rendezvous here next week, and then we’ll take it to Hawk Moth again, but this time we’ll be there to watch him, and if he turns on us we can try our best. But I have information that if I exposed could ruin his civilian life.”

“Yeah, we’ll expose him if he betrays us,” Chat decides.

“Are...you okay with this, Chat? Okay that I actually stopped to talk to him and formulated a plan to get him to turn himself in?”

“Well.” He shrugs. “At least I wasn’t there, I wouldn’t even have given him the time of day. You’re smarter than I could ever be, milady.”

“Now if only I could apply that to physics homework,” she says, a self-deprecating joke.

* * *

_Hawk Moth:_

_ Chat and I will be visiting with the requested objects a week from now. He wants to be there to watch in case you turn on us, and I don’t blame him for not trusting you. So we’ll be there next week. _

_ \-- Ladybug _

* * *

A week from that day, and Marinette is waiting for Chat in a Ladybug mask, with red ribbons tying her hair and a red sweater and skirt on. Chat shows up in all fashionable black, and she doesn’t unfasten the earrings yet.

She can see the ring sitting on his hand; he isn’t taking it off yet, either.

The kwami flies out from her shoulder and she smiles as Tikki looks around until a black kwami emerges from Chat’s pocket. She still can’t tell who Chat is, with the mask and everything changing it up still despite being out of the uniforms.

The two kwamis hug and then retreat to their owners’ sides.

It’s time to go.

* * *

Marinette knows that Hawk Moth is prepared. He’s transformed and waiting inside to meet them, in the lair with the shattered window where Chat jumped.

“Let’s go,” he says to them.

Chat looks at her, as if to say: “I think this is a horrible idea, but it’s yours, so I’m going to follow anyways.”

They reach where she lays, and she takes off her earrings, slowly but surely.

“Are you sure?” Tikki asks her.

“I’ll be here if something goes wrong, Tikki,” Marinette whispers back, and hands the earrings over to Hawk Moth.

Tikki looks a bit mournful, as though this is the last time, and that by giving her up Marinette has done something gravely wrong. But she's guided by her own moral compass, and she's pretty sure this is right.

“Milady,” Chat says. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Yes, I’m sure, Chat. You don’t have to, though.”

Chat looks conflicted, though Marinette can’t tell for sure.

Eventually, he slides off his ring, though, and Marinette flinches.

The kwamis talk to Hawk Moth for a bit, and then work their magic on the body in the coma.

“So, uh, what happens after this?” he whispers to her, and she almost laughs.

“I don’t know,” she answers. “I don’t know what happens next, except that we go back to our civilian lives, and maybe we’ll see each other again.”

“I hope we do, milady,” he replies. “I hope we get to see each other again, and…”

“Well, we could always do a reveal. If Hawk Moth’s going to turn himself in, then there won’t be any danger in at least knowing who we are? I want to see you again.”

“I might not if everything plays out like it’s supposed to, Ladybug, but we can do that if you want.” And the flirtation is back. She rolls her eyes, but doesn’t say anything as Hawk Moth’s wife tries to get up. He tries to help her sit up, dropping the jewelry as he does. They pick it back up and do one last fistbump.

* * *

The news that night is buzzing about Hawk Moth being Gabriel Agreste, about Hawk Moth turning himself in, what happens to the fashion empire he headed, what happens to Adrien. She hopes, in a way, that Ms. Agreste can keep him, that they can stay in the mansion.

She and Chat never got the chance to reveal themselves to each other.

Marinette wonders if she was ever really lucky in the first place, if being Ladybug just caused her so much grief.

**Author's Note:**

> I was really tempted to turn this into an identity reveal fic, but decided to leave it open ended instead. Maybe they meet up, maybe Marinette tells someone, maybe she doesn't. I like to think that Adrien at least gets therapy for everything from the sudden revival of his mom to his father going to jail, to the neglect he suffered, to Chat Noir. I like to think that Marinette gets to know him well enough to tell him everything, but we'll never know - and this certainly doesn't reflect canon.


End file.
